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Hope Day fights suicide in Saddle Lake

As Saddle Lake’s annual Hope Day progressed at Kihew Asiniy school on Wednesday morning, students watched a PowerPoint presentation of members of the community that had taken their own lives, with some visibly affected by the photos and memories.
Bryce Almightyvoice-Kakeesim was one of the singers performing during Hope Day, focused on suicide prevention, in Saddle Lake last Wednesday.
Bryce Almightyvoice-Kakeesim was one of the singers performing during Hope Day, focused on suicide prevention, in Saddle Lake last Wednesday.

As Saddle Lake’s annual Hope Day progressed at Kihew Asiniy school on Wednesday morning, students watched a PowerPoint presentation of members of the community that had taken their own lives, with some visibly affected by the photos and memories.

“How many of you knew one of these people?” asked community wellness coordinator Sandra Cardinal after the presentation wrapped up, during the day focused on suicide prevention. Most in the gymnasium raised their hands.

“How many of you are still grieving?” she then asked, with some keeping their hands in the air. Cardinal went on to ask, how many of the students had ever felt no one cared about them or ever felt alone. Each time, the hands went up.

“We’re all human. We all have hurts,” she said, noting, “in our deep moments of pain, we hold it inside.” But it was important to reach out to one another, she said, encouraging them to seek out to one another or the community’s Crisis Response Emotional Support Team (CREST) if they needed help.

She asked students to put their hands to the hearts and as they did so, she reminded them, “That’s your purpose. You’re alive for a reason – don’t forget that.”

Among the presenters speaking on the day was Sharon Quinney, who lost her daughter Jordana to suicide on Jan. 1, 2009, “the worst day of my life.”

“That time, you’re supposed to be waking up happy, to a new year, new beginnings,” she said, choking up.

The Powerpoint presentation featured about 20 members of the Saddle Lake and Goodfish Lake communities that had taken their own lives, including Jordana, and she said, “That’s lots. And that’s not even all of them; it’s 20 people too many . . . We shouldn’t even be losing anybody that way.”

Quinney spoke about how painful it was to lose a loved one to suicide.

“I was in a dark, dark place – I quit teaching. I never went back to my Grade 1 class and I felt bad. I felt like I abandoned them,” she said of the initial years following Jordana’s death. “You don’t even care about nothing. You’re in darkness. I don’t ever want anyone to go there. It’s not a good place to be.”

However, she noted, that several people helped her out in a time when she felt like giving up herself, and that traditional practices and prayer helped her in her healing journey. Although she had been worried about what happened to her daughter’s soul following her death by suicide, she said she felt a message from a higher power that her daughter had reached heaven.

“I know because I got a message and I felt it and I was real happy that day. I cried (but) they weren’t sad tears; they were tears of joy and happiness that she got in,” she said.

Following the presentation, Quinney explained that Hope Day is meant to spread “positive hope to our students” and remind them that even if they face depression or have thoughts of suicide, there is a better way.

Liam Almightyvoice-Kakeesim is 16-years-old, and has been one of the drummers singing at Hope Day for the past six years. He describes the day as “somewhere to embrace yourself,” and to acknowledge people’s different experiences with suicide.

Suicide has a big impact on the students at the school, he acknowledged, saying he could see their grief on their faces. “You notice it when they walk around.”

Hope Day reaches out to those students, he said, explaining - “It kind of reminds them – it ain’t only you, there’s a ton of people beside you, helping you.”

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